Much of what we know about history we know from art. For example, few very few clothes survived. We know what people wore from words and mostly from paintings and drawings. It was writing and drawings almost alone that most of the clues to the ancients have been passed to us. Pottery, carved architectural items, carved tools - all art forms. History tells us how one culture overran another. We can trace thru the arts this trail as the Romans absorbed the best from the Greeks. We can also witness how tribes far less concerned about the arts overran the "civilized" world we had long periods where at least in Europe little fine art was being produced.
Artists have further depicted history in their paintings long before cameras did. American Indians wrote history on the Teepees in pictographs. In the Swest these stories and emblems were carved into stone.
It is a real task to separate one from the other through the centuries.
